without Him, I would only be Me
by Cheeseburger of Doom
Summary: [niouyagyuu, yagyuuniou] They were not friends but they became lovers. They were completely different, but had several thngs in common. When together, they made logic disappear...and he can't remember which face was his own.


A/N: Actually, I'm more of an anime girl (aka I don't have access to the manga, booo) so I never got to enjoy the real Niou and Yagyuu...I've read a lot of fics, though. I hope that I'm not doing them a great disservice by writing this. The switch deal fascinates me. I want to play with it. (Don't hurt me, please.) I hope that I'm not ripping anyone off, either. That was certainly not my intent. I think I've heard enough from people that I somehow managed to be a little original with my fic, even though most of what I had to go by was other fics. 

I now present to you the first and probably the last (non-AU) Niou x Yagyuu that will be written by these hands.

without Him, I would only be Me

Niou and Yagyuu were not friends. Their personalities didn't match at all. Niou was too wild and outgoing; Yagyuu was too quiet and subdued. Niou liked to try and tease Yagyuu once in a while, but most of the time he didn't bother. It was useless to try and get a rise out of someone who never reacted to anything. It was useless to pester a guy who hid behind those glasses, and refused to let the world know what he was really thinking, if he was thinking anything at all, that is.

They were not friends, and they would never have spoken to each other if they had not been on the same tennis team. The only reason they even started speaking together then was because they didn't have much of a choice; on the first day that the exchanged real words, they were playing a practice match against each other.

It was a long and drawn out affair, and just as it seemed that there was no end in sight, it began to rain. The rain came as a relief to both of them; neither wanted to lose, but at this rate, there was no way either of them was going to win any time soon. They both just wanted practice to end at a decent time, so that they could go home, have dinner, and get their homework done (or not, in Niou's case).

They both looked up at the sky, which had been clear moments before. Niou looked with eyes that shone with something mischievous, no matter what he did; Yagyuu looked up with eyes shielded by glasses that hid everything away.

"It must be a sign that we aren't meant to play against each other," Niou said. It was hard to tell if he was joking or not. He was rarely serious about anything. Even if Yagyuu did not know him very well, he knew that much at least.

"Do you believe in fate?" Yagyuu asked, on a whim. He himself believed in logic, and he did not care what Niou believed in one way or the other. Yet the question had demanded to be asked, by something deep inside him he would much rather have ignored.

"Not really," was Niou's simple reply. Then, he asked Yagyuu a question. "Want to try doubles?"

Yagyuu's first instinct was to refuse right away. He did not play doubles, he played singles. However, he decided that he shouldn't be so close-minded about it -- he had never played doubles, so how did he know for sure that he would not be any good at it?

"Fine," he said. Niou smiled, and nodded. It was an odd gesture, when he thought about it, but this was Niou. Niou was always odd, as far as he could tell.

Niou was wild, and obnoxious, and everything that Yagyuu was not.

-----

The next day, they played doubles. They were horrible. They did not understand each other at all in real life, and it was no different in tennis. Their styles were different, their thought processes were different, and even their tempers were different. Niou got angry when Yagyuu missed something that Niou determined was in his area; Yagyuu did not get outwardly angry at any time, but inside, he was realizing just why he hadn't wanted to play doubles.

"This isn't working," Niou said, finally. "We can't play together."

Yagyuu had no comment for that. It was the truth. He regarded Niou with a cool look, and waited for Niou to complete the statement. It appeared, though, that Niou had nothing else to say.

"It's probably for the best," Yagyuu said, finally, to break the silence. It was becoming uncomfortable, both of them staring at each other like this. "Neither of us was built for doubles."

"That's true enough."

That silence stretched on and on yet again, and Yagyuu found himself becoming irritated with it.

"Let's just try again," he said. Niou looked a little surprised, but he didn't argue. Maybe he had nothing better to do, or maybe he really wanted to succeed at doubles since he already knew singles well enough. Whatever the case, the second time they tried, they almost managed to win the game.

The third time they tried, they flattened the team they were up against.

-----

Niou and Yagyuu continued to play doubles. They were not friends, and they did not understand each other at all, but it became much easier to understand each other's moves. They worked well as a team, in tennis at least. In real life, they were still polar opposites, and for the most part they avoided one another.

Yagyuu usually ate lunch alone. He preferred the peace and quiet of being alone, and he did not have many friends, anyway. In fact, he did not have anyone that he would have labelled "friend". He was never lonely, though.

Niou sought him out one day at lunch, and found him by himself under a tree, looking up at the sky.

"Is there something up there you find interesting?" he asked, seating himself next to the boy who had somehow become his doubles partner.

"Not really," was Yagyuu's simple reply. "What do you want?"

"If we start practicing more, I think we can get into doubles one," Niou said.

"Yes."

"The only problem with that is that we both want to play singles."

"Yes."

The silence that always enveloped them came again, and they both stared up at the clouds, lost in their own thoughts.

"I will play doubles, as long as it's with you," Yagyuu said. He did not particularly like Niou, but he understood Niou's moves by now. They played well together, and if they could win that way, it did not matter if it was doubles. Winning was winning.

"I could take that the wrong way, you know. It sounds like you're confessing your love."

Yagyuu just regarded Niou with that cool stare of his, with eyes that revealed nothing. "Do you want to play doubles?"

"As long as it's with you." Niou was grinning at his joke, but Yagyuu knew that the answer was a yes. They would be doubles one together, and they would win. They would win because they were starting to understand each other, in real life as well as in tennis.

-----

Doubles one was theirs.

They spent much of their spare time practicing. It meant staying late after school and using the tennis courts together, working on technique. It meant spending much more time together than they were used to.

It meant that they got to know each other better, at least somewhat.

After that first day, Niou took to eating lunch with Yagyuu. They were alike in that they did not have many, if any, friends. Niou was wild, obnoxious and fun, and everyone loved him, but he was not close to anyone. His eyes were not shielded by glasses that hid all of his emotions, but there was still a wall there, anyway. A wall that no one could get inside.

Yagyuu found that he did not mind the company at lunch. He had always been irritated by the presence of others, but for some reason this intrusion by Niou did not seem to bother him. It was probably because Niou never tried to pull pranks on him or tease him about anything while they sat there and ate, and he felt grateful for that much.

Yagyuu did not know why Niou wanted to eat lunch with him, nor did he ask. He did not really care. Niou could eat where he pleased, so long as he did not bother Yagyuu while he was there.

They rarely had conversations. Sometimes there were a few words exchanged, but they had nothing to talk about, really. Niou was not interested in anything that Yagyuu found interesting. They could not talk about literature, because Niou detested books as much as Yagyuu enjoyed them; they could not talk about anything academic because it made Niou's head hurt. In turn, Yagyuu was not at all interested in anything that Niou liked. He did not care who Niou had managed to torture that day, or how he'd done it, or even why he'd done it. Yagyuu was not interested in torture. Really, he just wasn't interested in other people. They bored him, even when showing extreme reactions to things like pranks. They were too predictable.

One thing he finally decided that he liked about Niou was that he was not all that predictable. Sometimes, he would say things that surprised Niou. They were little things, really, like that comment he had made once about fate; but they were surprising nonetheless. It made getting through the day almost worth it if Niou surprised him like that.

-----

Niou usually spared Yagyuu from his pranks, but not always. More than once, Yagyuu found a rubber snake in his school bag. It was always the same snake, even though he made sure to dispose of it ever time. He suspected that Niou had a stack of them at home, somewhere. The grin on the rubber snake's face was identical to the one that Niou wore most of the time.

Rubber snakes did not frighten Yagyuu. They were barely an annoyance. It was something he expected, really. In that, Niou was predictable, and it bored Yagyuu to some extent. He could deal with that boredom, though, because Niou seemed to have fun with it, and he wasn't boring in all ways.

-----

There were other things that Niou could do to surprise him, besides the occasional sentence.

"What's your favorite book?" Niou asked, suddenly.

"Book?"

"Yeah, you know, those things that you read, for fun, or whatever it is that you read them for."

"I don't know," Yagyuu said, truthfully. He'd read a lot of books. "Why?"

"I thought I would read it," Niou said.

"Read for fun?"

"Or whatever it is that you read for."

Niou met Yagyuu's cool stare with his grin. Yagyuu rhymed off a list of books that he thought Niou might be able to sit through, but he did not expect Niou to read them.

-----

Yagyuu was quite surprised, and impressed, when a couple of weeks later, Niou started talking to him about the books he'd read. They even had a few decent conversations about them, and Niou proved to be quite the philosopher.

"I read your books, now you should read mine." Niou dumped a stack of magazines at Yagyuu's feet.

"I'm hardly interested in pornography."

"Hey, it's not all pornography. Just read them," Niou said. "Think of it as returning a favor."

"I never asked you for a favor."

That little detail did not seem to bother Niou. Yagyuu decided to at least look at some of them.

-----

The next week, they discussed Niou's magazines. Some of them were about cars, some of them were about getting rich -- and some of them were pornography. Yagyuu was surprised yet again to find that some of them were art magazines. Those were the ones he liked best, and the ones he had expected Niou to like the least.

He'd guessed wrong, though. Those were the ones that Niou liked best, too. They had one more thing to add to what they had in common, but the list still wasn't very long.

"How did you like the porn?" Niou asked, grin more mischievous than usual.

"I didn't," Yagyuu replied.

"Are you some kind of momma's boy that gets offended by that kind of thing?"

"No, I just find it lacking," Yagyuu said.

"So you prefer the real thing?"

Yagyuu did not think that question warranted a reply. Niou seemed to take that as an affirmative, and he laughed for the rest of the lunch hour.

-----

The most surprising thing that Niou did was the first time he kissed Yagyuu.

Apart from lunch and tennis practice, they did not see each other very much at school. They passed each other once in a while in the hallways, but that was about it. On one of those occasions, Niou reached out and grabbed Yagyuu by the wrist. He pulled Yagyuu out of the throng of students, and took him away.

Niou waited until most of the students were already in their classes, then he pushed Yagyuu up against the wall, and kissed him.

The most prominent thought in Yagyuu's head was that he was going to be late for class. He was surprised by this intrusion of his personal space, and surprised that Niou had the nerve to do this to him, but he was not put off by the action. In fact, he quite enjoyed it. He didn't bother to push Niou away, simply waited until Niou decided he'd had enough, and let Niou back away on his own.

"You're cold," Niou said. "You don't even respond."

Yagyuu hadn't even realized he was supposed to. He decided that it would only be polite to return the kiss, and this time make it better.

This time, Niou was surprised.

-----

The stolen kisses continued for quite some time. All the while, they got better and better at doubles, because they were learning to understand each other more and more. There was something about knowing what the other's lips felt like that opened a window to their soul.

The switch was Niou's idea, of course. He was the one who loved pranks, after all. Pranks bored Yagyuu, and Niou usually spared him from having to hear about them, but this time he wanted Yagyuu to be involved.

"Think about it," he said. "It would be fun."

"Why?" Yagyuu asked. What could possibly be so fun about pretending to be one another?

"Think about what people will do when they find out."

"I don't care about other people." That was one thing that Yagyuu would never care about; other people. They were boring. Niou was not going to win him over, unless he could think of something much stronger than that.

"Fine, then. Don't you ever wonder what it would be like to be me?"

"No, not really." The thought had never crossed his mind. Why would it?

"You've never wanted to be more outgoing, more out there?"

"No."

"You really don't care about anything, do you?"

Yagyuu's reply was still no.

Niou kissed him, then. That kiss was almost enough to convince Yagyuu to change his mind, if only because it was unexpected, and the heat of it sent chills down his spine. Niou's next statement did him in.

"It would be different," he said.

-----

It was hard being Niou. He did not fully comprehend why Niou did what he did, and so it was hard to do it. It was going to be hard to think of pranks when he'd never bothered with them before. It was hard getting used to contacts, because he was used to hiding behind glasses that sealed everything away.

"You know, you're hot like that," Niou said.

"Dressed like you?"

"Yeah."

"That's a bit narcissistic."

"Come on, you can't tell me you're not a little turned on by me wearing your clothes."

"Not in the least." That wasn't the complete truth, though. There was something almost exciting about looking at Niou when he was like this. It was like looking into a living, breathing mirror.

"Let's go fool everyone," Niou said.

-----

They were not perfect on the first day. The people around them noticed something different about them. It was not different enough for them to figure it out, though. They chalked it up to bad moods. Some decided it was the male version of PMS, but those kind of people were not worth Yagyuu's time, frankly.

Yagyuu wondered how Niou could stand the people that he spent most of his time with. They were loud, rude, obnoxious -- then again, they were much like Niou himself. Yagyuu did not like them, though. They were all just predictable humans.

Niou was not like them, at all.

"You lead a pretty boring life," Niou said, at the end of that day. They were switching back to their usual selves. "It's so quiet. No one really talks to you."

"I like it that way."

"Oh, really? How did you like being me, then?"

"It was different," Yagyuu said. That was the best answer that he could give. It hadn't exactly been annoying. Yagyuu would have normally been annoyed by the people he'd had to deal with that day. He hadn't been himself that day, though. He had been Niou.

"You want to do it again?"

Yagyuu's first instinct was to say no. He was perfectly content with being himself, and he did not need to live another life to fulfill any wanting need within him, although Niou seemed to be having that problem.

"Do you want to be me again so much?" Yagyuu asked.

"Yes." Niou was still not completely himself yet. His hair still looked like Yagyuu's, though he was no longer wearing the glasses. Yagyuu was not wearing his glasses yet, either. Their naked eyes met, probably for the first time.

"Your eyes show just as little when you haven't got those things on," Niou said. He pulled Yagyuu to him, roughly, and they made out in the school washroom, where anyone could have found them, but no one did.

-----

They switched more and more often. They began to get each other's personalities down, though it became a little confusing trying to remember who they were at any given time. Yagyuu found himself thinking as Niou when he was supposed to be Yagyuu, and that was disconcerting; it felt like he was losing himself.

Still, he did not try to quit; not when Niou still kissed him so roughly and made his mind spin. It was hard to concentrate on anything while being kissed like that.

"Let's try and fool our parents," Niou suggested one day, as they changed back into themselves after a day of switching. "I think that would be fun. If my own mother doesn't recognize that you're not me, then we know we're doing something right."

Yagyuu's first instinct was to say no. His first instinct was always to say no. At one time, he had paid attention to his instincts, but since Niou had come along that had changed drastically. Niou made logic fly out of the window.

-----

They began by going to each other's houses on a regular basis, to learn how each dealt with his own family. They referred to these meetings as "study sessions", and while no homework ever got done, they studied very hard.

"Remember, I'm a regular little brat, so if you act at all nice they'll think there's something wrong with me," Niou said. "I don't want them to think that I've suddenly become good or something."

"Of course not." There was a hint of humor in Yagyuu's voice, where usually there was nothing but cold indifference. Niou was changing him, slowly, like long and drawn-out torture.

"Do you have any last advice for me, before I go in there to potentially mess up your parents' opinions of you?"

"Try not to break anything," Yagyuu said.

"Don't worry, I'm good at being you," Niou said. "I know the way your mind ticks, now."

"At least somewhat," Yagyuu agreed. They parted ways, and Yagyuu entered Niou's house -- his house, for tonight. He was Niou, now.

Neither of their parents suspected a thing. Their switch was flawless.

-----

"Let's use the switch for tennis." It was Niou's idea, but it was coming out of Yagyuu's mouth. He was Niou at the moment, after all.

Niou as Yagyuu raised an eyebrow. "What do you hope to accomplish by doing that?"

"It will be fun," Yagyuu as Niou replied.

"I don't really care about fun."

"Then it will be different."

Niou as Yagyuu caved in.

They really knew each other very well, indeed.

-----

The first time they used the switch to play tennis, they crushed their opponent perfectly. The second time they used it, they had to reveal the switch because they needed to use each other's moves to win. Each could use the other's moves perfectly, without a hitch -- no one could tell who was the real Niou, and who was the fake. No one could tell which of the players was actually Yagyuu, under the deception. They assumed that the one in the glasses was Yagyuu, and of course they were right. Yagyuu was Yagyuu that day, because Yagyuu was always Yagyuu.

The switch was perfect, after all.

No one would ever be able to tell who was the original. There was no way to do it.

-----

"You should have a scar here," Niou said, pointing to a spot on Yagyuu's forearm. The spot tingled where Niou's fingers grazed it. "I have one there."

Yagyuu wanted to ask, "Does the switch really have to be that perfect?" but he already knew the answer to that.

He probably could have used make-up or something of the kind to apply a scar whenever he was being Niou, but that would have been too much of a hassle, really. It was easier just to take a knife and make a small slash there. It didn't hurt all that much, and it would heal soon. It would leave a perfect scar, and the world would never be able to tell which one of them had been scarred there first.

The world would never know whose scar was real.

-----

Yagyuu had never been the jealous type, but for some reason, the thought of Niou kissing someone else, touching someone else, screwing someone else...He hated it. He hated that thought with a passion he hadn't even known he possessed. Niou was changing him, slowly like toture -- and yet the change was happening faster every day.

He was not surprised to see Niou making out with someone else, since Niou had always been a bit of a player. It had never bothered him before, but he hadn't really known Niou before. He hadn't been involved with Niou before.

He'd never known Niou, before.

He looks up, and sees me watching. "What?" he asked. Yagyuu did not know if he meant "What are you doing here?" or the more complex question of "What do you want?" so he had no idea of how to answer. Not that he knew the answer to the second, anyway.

"Never mind. Please continue."

Niou looked down at the girl, then back up at Yagyuu. He sent the girl away. She looked close to tears, but Yagyuu felt no pity for her. He was too angry, an anger born of something he had never expected to feel. Yagyuu was jealous.

"I would much rather continue with you," Niou said, when the girl was safely out of range.

Yagyuu wanted to protest, but it was too hard to protest anything that Niou wanted.

-----

"I want you to be mine," Niou said, one evening. They were in Niou's room. Yagyuu was doing some homework, and Niou was pretending to do his. "I want you to belong to me."

"I'm not a possession. Besides, you were the one making out with someone else."

"Was it me, or was it you pretending to be me? It could have been me, pretending to be you pretending to be me."

Yagyuu regarded Niou with a look of distaste. "Stop trying to be confusing."

"I like teasing you."

"Yes, I've noticed."

"I want you to be mine," Niou repeated. There was a dangerous note in his voice, now. It had always been hard to tell when Niou was being serious, but this time it was easy.

"Then I'm yours," Yagyuu said. He had meant to say something witty to make Niou leave it be, so the words that escaped his lips surprised him. What surprised him even more was the fact that he meant it entirely.

Niou stopped chasing other people, and Yagyuu had no more cause to be jealous. It was a relief, and yet it was not. The fact that he had been jealous in the first place was cause for some alarm. Both Yagyuus were not happy with their newfound emotion; both Nious were rather smug that they had managed to make Yagyuu feel it.

-----

The stolen kisses and make-out sessions got more and more heated, until one night they ended up in Niou's bed. His family was out for the evening, leaving the two of them to do what they would.

The first time they had sex, Niou was as rough as usual. Yagyuu liked that, though. It was just one of those things about Niou that was entirely _Niou_, and would never change. Yagyuu knew all too well how that roughness went, since when he was playing Niou, he had to incorporate it into his personality.

When he was Niou and they stole kisses in the hallway, he had to kiss like Niou. No one would have noticed any differently, but that was the way it was. If he did not kiss like Niou while he was Niou -- then who was he, really? No one.

"You're really mine, now," Niou said. "About time, too."

Yagyuu had no reply to that. He had been expecting the remark. If he had been acting as Niou, he would have said exactly the same thing.

-----

They had sex often after that, whenever they could. It was intoxicating, and it was addictive.

The first time they forgot to switch back to themselves, Yagyuu almost panicked. It was not like him to panic, nor was it like Niou to panic, so he must have developed a third personality somewhere along the way. As he made love to Niou, who was dressed as Yagyuu, he realized with a start that he was, for lack of better terminology, fucking himself.

They had been too caught up in the moment to realize that they were not themselves. Niou had been too impatient and aggressive to let Yagyuu even be able to try and think it through; it didn't matter that Niou was really Yagyuu at this point -- Yagyuu had Niou's personality down perfectly.

The fake Yagyuu turned his head to look at the real Yagyuu questioningly. Aren't you going to finish what you started? his eyes asked. While in bed, neither Yagyuu wore their glasses.

That look caused the real Yagyuu to forget his panic. The third personality retreated somewhere, and Niou took over. After all, the real Yagyuu was Niou at this point. He may as well act like him.

-----

Niou had become predictable. Yagyuu should have been bored with him by now, because he knew everything there was to know about him, and nothing surprised him anymore. He had to know everything about him, because sometimes, he was Niou.

Maybe he had been Niou in the first place. He couldn't really remember.

Whatever the case, Yagyuu was not yet bored with Niou, and Niou was not yet bored with the switch. It might continue on and on forever, unless Yagyuu tried to put a stop to it.

He didn't really want to, yet. If he ended the switch, he might end up losing Niou. Even though Niou was entirely predictable, Yagyuu did not want to let go. He wanted to be Niou's for a while longer, at least.

-----

It was getting harder and harder to remember who he had been in the first place. The switches happened so often lately that it was all a whirl. One day, he was Niou; wild, loud, outgoing, mischievous. The next day, he was Yagyuu; quiet, subdued, calm, collected. The third personality he had developed for a few moments that one time was gone for good, it seemed. That was a shame really, because if it had stayed, he might have retained a hold on his own personality.

He was both people at once; he knew both people exceptionally well.

He was fairly certain that he had been Niou first. He knew Niou's family well, and they knew him. They joked with him, they argued with him, and took care of him as if he was one of their own, so he must be. The only problem was that he fit into Yagyuu's family equally as well, if only in a different way. They were much quieter, like Yagyuu himself, and treated him with a kind of respect that he treasured, and trust that he never broke.

Maybe he had been Yagyuu first, but it was all getting so fuzzy. It was getting harder and harder to figure out where one switch ended and the next began. It was becoming more and more natural to find himself sleeping in one bed or the other, as if they both belonged to him, and always had.

It was even more natural to be in either of those beds with his partner, fucking him or being fucked by him. It was getting hard to know what name to call out, though, so most times he did not say anything at all.

------

"Niou-kun, I think that we should stop this switch," Yagyuu said. "It's getting out of hand."

Niou's first instinct was to say no. His first instinct had always been to say no, but ever since Yagyuu had appeared in his life, that had gone to Hell. He did not believe in fate, but he also did not believe in logic.

Something tickled at the back of his mind, but he ignored it. It was just a distant memory, and he did not want to remember it.

"Yeah, we can stop now," Niou said. "It was fun while it lasted, though."

"I suppose it was."

There was a silence, then. A silence that stretched on and on forever. This was a silence that always descended upon them, and had ever since they'd first started exchanging a few words with each other. It was inevitable with them.

"Is everything over, then?" Yagyuu asked. Niou could hear the worried note in his voice, even if no one else would have been able to.

"No, I still think you're hot," Niou said, with a grin. "Even if you're not dressed as me."

"Good."

"Will you be happy to be Yagyuu all the time, now?"

"Yes, I think I will."

Yagyuu met Niou's grin with his cool gaze. For one terrifying second, Niou panicked. It was not like him to panic, though. For one terrifying second, he wondered if this was the right thing to do.

It must be. It was the only thing to do, really.

"You'll be Niou forever," Yagyuu said. Niou felt something inside of him tear apart. He did not know what caused it, but it felt something like fear, or anger, or maybe remorse. It felt almost like he had lost something, and he would never know what that something was.

-----

owari


End file.
